MAY 2013 £3.99

PRINTED

IN TH

E UK U

S$9.99

£3.99

New Arcam FMJ A19 integrated amp – classic looks, great sound and price

Issue No. 371 M

ay 2013

The Ultim

ate Guide to H

igh-Performance H

i-Fiw

ww

.hifichoice.co.uk Six of the best standmount speakers up to £1,000

Stand & deliver

Cute ChordetteThe bijou TX headphone amp that’s hittingall the right notes in Choice Extras p119

RetRo: love it or loathe it, the Sondek LP12 is a massive turntable icon

Linn classic

Amp it up

Issue No. 371 May 2013passion for sound

DAC/Amp combo for the streaming generation

products on test fromAtlas, Elac and Heedthrough to XTZ...30

My Naim is...World

ExclusivENaim dAc-v1

& NAP 100

Making computer audio simple p40

rip it up!

Beautiful system:Gothic good looks from

McIntosh and Art

Group TesT

001_371_Cover_v8.2_LDEH.indd 1 8/4/13 10:04:24

he new Naim DAC-V1/NAP 100 combo you see before you here is the Salisbury company’s latest

attempt to make computer audio accessible. The easiest form of high-resolution file playback is, of course, straight off your computer,

DETAILSPRODUCT:Naim DAC-V1 Naim NAP 100ORIGIN: UKTYPE: DAC preamplifier and power amplifierWEIGHT: DAC-V1: 4.3kg NAP 100: 5.1kgDIMENSIONS: (WxHxD) DAC-V1: 207 x 87 x 314mm NAP 100: 207 x 87 x 314mmFEATURES: • Claimed power output: 50W into 8ohms• Inputs: 1x RCA phono; 1x stereo DIN• Outputs: 1 pair of speaker binding postsDISTRIBUTOR:Naim Audio LtdTELEPHONE:01722 426600WEBSITE: naimaudio.com

OK computerThe DAC-V1 and NAP 100 DAC/power amp combination show how attuned to the rapidly growing computer audio-based music market Naim has become, says David Price

I effectively using it as a digital transport, and the new digital convertor is designed to facilitate precisely that. Essentially, it packages much of the technology that we’ve seen on the very capable (and expensive) Naim DAC, adds a bit more and then crams it all into a very

nice little ‘half width’ box complete with a decent display to tell you what it’s up to. At £1,250 it’s pretty affordable – certainly by Naim standards – and just for good measure it comes with a companion, the NAP 100 amplifier. This matching £650 box gives a claimed 50W RMS

Reviews Naim audio daC-V1/NaP 100daC/PreamP £1,250 aNd Power amPLiFier £650

16 REPRINTED FROM www.hifichoice.co.uk

per channel (in 8ohms), which should be enough for most tinitus-averse types.

If this were the eighties and we were all wearing red braces and driving around in Golf GTis, the word upon our lips would be “lifestyle” when looking at these two new bits of kit. I know, I’m sorry, but there’s no denying that Naim has worked hard on presenting these two products well. The black powder-coated metal fascias and casework look lovely, and contrast particularly well with the pin-sharp, bright green OLED display. The size of each unit is perfect (with dimensions of 207 x 87 x 314mm), and they’re stackable or can sit beside one another – where they’re as wide as a standard hi-fi separate. They’re not back-breakingly heavy, but substantial enough to confer a sense of quality.

Indeed, that’s the user-experience Naim wishes to give – allied to simplicity and a fuss-free ownership experience. The DAC-V1 isn’t just a digital convertor, as it has a volume control too – making the addition of the NAP 100 a sort of twenty first century NAC42/NAP110, which was also a cute, half-width pre-power with one eye on style some 30 years back. Its digitally controlled analogue volume control and a front panel headphone socket (with a discrete transistor, single-ended full Class A amplifier section behind it) give it useful flexibility, and there’s a row of smooth acting, backlit buttons for switching five digital inputs and USB on the front panel.

Under the hoodInside, a Burr Brown PCM1791A 24-bit/748kHz stereo voltage output DAC chip (as seen inside the NDX and SuperUniti) is found, with custom-designed digital filtering with Naim-authored code, giving 16 times oversampling. The latter is done on a SHARC ADSP21489 DSP along with a RAM buffer, and following this the analogue signal goes to a discrete Naim preamplifier gain stage using selected passive components. It will work up to 24-bit, 384kHz resolution via USB, which itself is asynchronous so the Naim DAC-V1 provides the clock lock.

Conventional digital inputs (one BNC, two RCA and a pair of TOSLINKs) work up to 24/192. Galvanic (optical) isolation is used between digital and analogue sections to cut out digital noise, and there’s a linear power supply with 210VA transformer, with three separate windings for digital, DAC and analogue stages.

Multiple pre-regulated linear power supplies are used, as is a six-layer PCB designed for low electromagnetic interference. Discrete audiophile film capacitors appear throughout the signal path, alongside discrete tantalum capacitors in critical power supplies and in signal path AC coupling.

Despite its diminutive dimensions, the NAP 100 is a classic discrete transistor power amp, a dual mono design apparently based on the circuit topology found in Naim’s SuperUniti reference all-in-one player. It has a claimed output of 50W into 8ohms and twice that into 4ohms. This suggests a strong power supply, and to that end sports a large toroidal transformer. In classic Naim fashion it has a DIN preamp input on the back panel, supplemented by its concession to the mass market – a pair of RCA phono sockets. As per the DAC-V1, the casework is a quality affair, having a non-magnetic, low resonance die-cast alloy chassis and sleeve.

Cleverly, the DIN connector is designed to float, ensuring that the cable does not transfer any microphonic disturbance on the PCB. The RCA connectors fix to the chassis, but where the connector meets the board

there are a number of stress relief methods applied to allow the PCB to flex. Naim says that special care is taken to apply the correct torque to the output devices as this has a considerable effect on sound quality.

Together, the pair is lovely to use – and clever details like the logo mute function, where you touch the backlit Naim badge and the music stops, make it all the nicer. The inclusion of a fancy OLED display to the new DAC-V1 allows functionality that the Naim DAC doesn’t have. You can get detailed textual and graphical feedback on performance, such as the BitPerfect test, which tells you if the audio files streamed from your computer arrive at the DAC-V1 unmodified. Just press the input button you’re currently using for a few seconds and a little screen pops up with all sorts of

handy system information, such as the buffer capacity, file resolution, etc.

USB set up is easy; using a Mac it’s just a case of selecting the output device in ‘Sound’ preferences and then telling the software player (Audirvana in this case) the same via its Preferences menu. This done, it shows up as ‘Naim DAC-V1 Audiophileleo.com’, and that’s it, you’re in business.

Sound qualityThere’s no mistaking what you’re listening to. Like many fine brands, Naim Audio has a distinctive character to the way it goes about making music, which doesn’t seem to change much regardless of the product. This is pure twenty-first century Naim, which is to say clean, tidy, tonally smooth – dark even – but grippy, rhythmic and dynamic, too. What you don’t get is a rich, fat, bloated sort of sound, but nor is it thin and reedy, with detail etched on your cranium. And encouragingly, the DAC-V1/NAP 100 is consistent in this across all sources, and all digital resolutions.

Kicking off with some standard 16/44 silver disc from a Cyrus transport plugged into the DAC via coaxial digital, and Corduroy’s London England is riotously good fun. This early nineties Acid Jazz recording is lovely, late-period analogue and the Naim combo is incisive enough to throw out every detail of the recording, yet refined enough to capture its innate smoothness. The track is highly percussive, with some very energetic drum kit work, and this pre-power reveals itself to be lithe enough to follow the histrionics of the drummer. Bass drum is nicely taut with that characteristic Naim ‘on-off’ sort of envelope, snares are penetrating and hard but not spitty, and hi-hats crisp and detailed, but with feathery

A big soundstage, inside which all the strands in the mix are located with laser-guided precision

Reviews

Naim audio daC-V1/NaP 100daC/PreamP £1,250 aNd Power amPLiFier £650

17www.hifichoice.co.uk REPRINTED FROM

DP: How close is the DAC-V1 to the Naim DAC?DB: The key difference between them is the DAC-V1’s Asynchronous USB input, allowing the user to connect the product directly to their computer, laptop or Mac. The Naim DAC is a line-level output device (designed to connect to a preamplifier) but the DAC-V1 incorporates a digitally controlled CMOS analogue volume control and preamp. The Class A pre-amp stage also doubles up as a high-quality headphone amplifier with the ability to drive many headphones, even high-impedance ones. There has been no compromise on the sonic performance on the DAC-V1. Does the DAC-V1 have any special aspects of its design over conventional rivals?Along with a custom, fully asynchronous USB transceiver and host controller allowing support for up to 24bit/384kHz sample rate audio files, much work was carried out to reduce the effect of power supply and ground noise from the PC entering the DAC-V1. There is no reliance on the 5V line from the USB and its entry into the product ends at the connector. This eliminates power supply noise from the PC entering the product. We have also used components to suppress the noise between the computer ground and DAC-V1 digital ground. Ground lift switch enables use with preamps and existing earth products (ie a CD player) used for preventing ground loops. Can you describe the circuit design on the NAP 100?It’s a Class A/B amplifier featuring the circuit architecture originally developed for the Super Nait, optimised and using discrete bi-polar transistors throughout the circuit, with the design symmetrical about the signal ground so the signal is not routed down two spurs that may at any instant be at different levels degrading sonic performance. It features a dual mono architecture, each channel is powered from a separate transformer winding.

Q&A

1

5

3 4

2 Folded alloy chassis

3 PSU rectification and reservoir capacitors

6 Direct connection to 4mm speaker outlets

5 Two pairs of power amp transistors bolted to chassis

4 DIN and (adj) RCA line inputs

Described as a ‘classic expression of Naim engineering’, the back-to-basics NAP 100 is a robust little ‘brick’ of an amplifier dominated by a substantial linear power supply. The latter is more than capable of besting Naim’s 50/75W 8/4ohm specification at 2x61W/8ohm and 2x91W/4ohm and encompasses sufficient headroom to accommodate musical peaks of 75W, 127W, 185W and 200W into 8, 4, 2 and very low 1ohm loads under dynamic

conditions at <1% distortion. Naim has also ‘engineered’ a very consistent level of distortion – just 0.0035% – from 1W right up to its rated 50W output through midrange frequencies. Distortion does increase slightly at very low bass frequencies (0.005% at 20Hz) and very high treble frequencies (0.015% at 20kHz) but this is subjectively benign.

The frequency response has also been sensibly tailored (–1dB/3Hz to

34kHz) just as the output impedance, while slightly high for a traditional solid-state amp at 0.22ohm, is perfectly in line with Naim tradition and remarkably uniform from 20Hz right out to 100kHz.

Noise is also very low (–83dBV hum) and the A-wtd S/N ratio impressively wide at 97dB (re. 0dBW) bearing in mind the size of that nearby mains transformer. This is a solid, by-the-numbers Naim amp. PM

ON TEST

3

LAB REPORT - DAC-V1

2

1 45

6 1 Substantial power supply transformer

2 Power supply reservoir caps

3 Two master clocks for multiples of 44.1kHz and 48kHz

6 Output muting and switching relays

5 Here’s the DAC – a 24-bit/192kHz chip from Burr-Brown

4 SHARC digital processor from Analog Devices

Because the V1 is both a DAC and preamp, the ideal volume position will be determined by the digital media’s peak recorded level. If you listen to a lot of rock and pop then digital levels will persist very close to the maximum 0dBFs at which point a volume setting of ‘55’ will already have the partnering NAP 100 amplifier up at its rated 50W/8ohm output.

Volume setting ‘68’ realises a standard 2V output from the V1 at a

higher-than-average (though not especially high) distortion of 0.025%, a figure that increases to 0.045% at 3V out (volume ‘75’) and 0.085% at 5V out (volume ‘84’). More importantly, this distortion remains very steady indeed right across the audioband.

Measured at 2V output, the A-wtd S/N ratio amounts to a modest 103dB and although the DAC-V1 will accept media up to 24-bit/384kHz, the practical frequency response of

anything sampled at 88.2kHz-384kHz is limited to just 30kHz. This is due to a custom IIR upsampling filter, first unveiled in the Naim DAC in 2010 and used later in the ND5 XS. Payback comes in the form of reduced time domain distortions – it’s a subjective trade-off on the part of Naim’s engineers. Just as importantly, and in common with these related digital products, jitter is supremely well-suppressed at just 10psec. PM

ON TEST

Dave Barber Design engineer, Naim Audio

2

6

LAB REPORT - NAP 100

1 Toroidal power supply transformer

Reviews Naim audio daC-V1/NaP 100daC/PreamP £1,250 aNd Power amPLiFier £650

REPRINTED FROM www.hifichoice.co.uk

Reviews

CONNECTIONS

4

76

3

LIKE: Strong, clean, musical sound; real-world power; size; build qualityDISLIKE: In all honesty, we’re struggling to find fault hereWE SAY: Really capable budget power amplifier that’s the ideal partner for the DAC-V1

VERDICT - NAP 100SOUND QUALITY

VALUE FOR MONEY

BUILD QUALITY

FEATURES

OVERALL

LIKE: Excellent sonics; fine USB implementation; packaging; compact size and fine buildDISLIKE: Would an analogue input be too much to ask for?WE SAY: Super-sounding DAC that gives you easy access to hi-res music

VERDICT - DAC-V1SOUND QUALITY

VALUE FOR MONEY

BUILD QUALITY

FEATURES

OVERALL

1

11

5

9

2

7 IEC mains power input

8 DIN preamp input

1 Coaxial digital inputs

2 DIN preamp output

3 RCA phono preamp output

6 USB digital input

5 BNC digital input

4 Optical digital inputs

smoothness – not something earlier vintage Naim kit would possess.

The combo really captures the song’s rhythmic undulations, and is great at communicating the dynamic accenting of the players, making for a wonderfully lucid listen. However, switching to USB and ramping up the resolution, the Naim really sings with a 24/192 rendering of REM’s plaintive Texarkana via an Audirvana-equipped MacBook Pro. Having heard this song once too many times at 16-bit resolution via

silver disc, where it’s splashy and gruff, the DAC-V1 really lets Peter Buck’s Rickenbackers ring out joyously. In front of this is a sweet sounding Mike Mills singing his heart out – and some lovely, pacey drum kit work set behind. It is so easy to pull individual strands out of the mix, yet the whole song coheres so well together. In every respect, from the excellent depth perspective to the crunchingly strong bass guitar work, it is a pleasure to listen to.

However, despite the obvious talents of the DAC, I can’t help feeling that the NAP 100 shouldn’t go unnoticed. It pairs perfectly with the DAC-V1, of course, but in its own right it’s a very sophisticated-sounding little amp for the money.

You’d never confuse it with a valve amplifier, of course, as it still has that crisp, clean, slightly shiny solid-state sound – but it is never hard or wiry across the upper midband (a real claim to fame for something at this price), serving up some super-sounding strings on a 24/88.2 file of Isaac Hayes’ Early Sunday Morning. From his beautiful Shaft soundtrack album, it has some of the nicest sounding violin and trumpet work ever committed to tape, and the NAP 100 is well able to show why. At the same time, I love the ultra explicit location of instruments in the mix, and the great sense of space. This amplifier is tight enough to let the original recording push out into your room in proper proportion, yet never stifles it.

From the lovely, lilting, shuffling rare groove of Isaac Hayes to the pounding, pummelling electro of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit via hi-res USB, this combo still doesn’t falter. Naim electronics has come of age over the past decade, but feed it anything with a strong beat and it seems to revert back to its headbanging past with consummate ease. All of a sudden, the NAP 100 is like a dog with a bone and you sure can hear it wagging its tail. The combo sets up a big soundstage, inside which all the strands in the mix are located with laser-guided precision; the rock-solid bassline is an obvious entry point but the complex drum machine patterns with electronic snares, congas and rim shots make for a gripping listen. In

front of this, Herbie’s vocoded vocals and keyboard noodling add masses of extra drama, and the song’s crashing dynamics show how the modest 50W NAP 100 is – in amplifier terms, at least – the mouse that roared. Another faultless performance from a DAC/power amp combo that makes you want to just keep on listening, then.

ConclusionI find myself saying this with depressing regularity these days (‘twas not always the way), but this is another masterful showing from Naim. It takes the good bits from the pricier Naim DAC, adds an excellent asynchronous USB implementation and a volume control and packages with a really capable little amplifier that’s good enough to let rip into most speakers. In doing so, Naim has come up with a package that’s greater even than the sum of the parts – and brilliant value too. Just like it was planned all along, it makes computer audio easy and accessible, yet will play back your ‘legacy’ disc collection and doesn’t take over your listening room either. My only regret is that the DAC-V1 doesn’t have a single analogue line input to plug a turntable in, but I suppose that’s just being greedy!

ALONG WITH LINN, Naim has done more to popularise hi-res audio among hi-fi enthusiasts. Both have their own record labels that sell hi-res downloads, and there’s a good bit of cross-pollination between the music making and the music playback parts of the chain.

Naim says that with the DAC-V1 it wanted to create a product that allows the user to get great performance from their computer audio, coupled with ease of use. As such, the small form factor makes the DAC-V1 and NAP 100 fine desktop solutions and you can couple both with a UnitiServe to get a complete audio ripping and playback solution – just add speakers!

The DAC-V1 is the only DAC/preamp in this smaller form factor in the Naim range and the only Naim asynchronous USB DAC. Paired up with the NAP 100, it’s a remarkably easy-to-use package that provides true high-end sound.

DESIGN MATTERS

The NAP 100 is like a dog with a bone and you sure can hear it wagging its tail

67

810

9 RCA phono input

10 Loudspeaker terminals

11 IEC mains power input

ReviewsNaim audio daC-V1/NaP 100daC/PreamP £1,250 aNd Power amPLiFier £650

www.hifichoice.co.uk REPRINTED FROM